Sitting Out Weather in Boot Key Harbor

Day 22:  March 21, 2013

Today was another “in port” day.  It all started with a steaming hot cup of coffee followed by chipped beef and gravy on toast.  We cleaned up the boat.  The problem here is that there is not enough storage room in the boat so that everything that we use throughout the day doesn’t have its designated hiding place.  Books, life jackets, throw cushions,, ditty bags, etc are jockeyed between the bed during the day and the cabin salon at night.  It seems that everywhere we stop we pick up “stuff” and it ends up in the cabin.  When we get up in the morning, the boat appears to have been trashed by a bear. 

That's the novel

 I typed my blog posting.  Janine finished her course for the US Power Squadron.  She has now completed two courses; one on basic seamanship and the other on cruise planning.  I worked for a while on my navigation course and then programmed a route to follow into our GPS.  This is a neat feature.  I can put a series of waypoints into the machine and it will connect the dots.  While we are underway, the GPS will give you a course, tell you how for it is to your destination and provide the time at which you will arrive (if you maintain the course accurately and maintain a constant speed).  If you get off course it will tell you the new track to follow to get to you to your desired destination and it will adjust your arrival time.  My previous GPS could also be slaved to the “Tiller Pilot” which will steer the boat either on magnetic course that you plug into the unit or to the waypoint that is programmed into the GPS.  I haven’t been able to get this more recent machine to do that.

Hurricane Wilma damaged unreopened marina in Marathon

At about 3:00, we packed up our dirty clothes, piled into Dink and headed for the marina.  We both took advantage of the wonderful showers at this place and, while Janine did the laundry, I borrowed the bicycle and made two stops: the first was at West Marine where I bought another life vest that I could use while skin diving.  The ones that I have been using while we sail are packaged in such a way to be small and then when submerged, inflate using a CO2 cartridge.  The second stop was at the grocery where I picked up a fresh supply of Spam and milk.  We bought ice at the marina and headed back to the boat.

Early depth sounder: lead weights on the end of a rope

We finally have eaten all of the meats that were processed so we had our first NY strip steak.  Our butcher guy had vacuum packed them in a marinade so they were out of this world.  We added pasta with Alfredo sauce as our side dish.  Served with a bottle of Black and Tan Yuengling, we enjoyed a fine meal.  After dinner, we were back to reading and we finished the evening by watching the last half of a Netflix movie that we had brought along.